Large data sets can be difficult to search for relevant information. Large data sets are often structured or organized in some manner, such as chronologically or by category, or amount, for example. The data can be hosted remotely or on a local device. A big challenge with such large data sets is enabling a user of the device to efficiently filter and navigate the data given the screen size limitations and input methods of the mobile device. For example, a messaging application may contain thousands of messages within a conversation through which the user must scroll through to reach a desired date; finding emails in an inbox is difficult to navigate and filter; a music library may contain thousands of songs that can be organised against numerous criteria; an airline booking application will have hundreds of flight routes and thousands of flight options to select from; and sports statistics can produce a very large amount of sortable data.
Known technologies include sliders which allow you to rapidly sort data by a variable. However known sliders are still cumbersome to work with, especially with large data sets, making their use somewhat limited. It would be desirable to provide a user interface which is easy to use and allows for rapid searching and selection of particular information in the data set, even when the data set is quite large.